and lays its pure hand upon the next.

Such a friendship, very deep, very tender, existed between Rachel West
and Hester Gresley. It dated back from the nursery days, when Hester and
Rachel solemnly eyed each other, and then made acquaintance in the dark
gardens of Portman Square, into which Hester introduced a fortified
castle with a captive princess in it, and a rescuing prince and a
dragon, and several other ingredients of romance to the awed amazement
of Rachel--stolid, solid, silent Rachel--who loved all two and four
legged creatures, but who never made them talk to each other as Hester
did. And Hester, in blue serge, told Rachel, in crimson velvet, as they
walked hand in hand in front of their nursery-maids, what the London
sparrows said to each other in the gutters, and how they considered the
gravel path in the square was a deep river suitable to bathe in. And
when the spring was coming, and the prince had rescued the princess so
often from the dungeon in the laurel-bushes that Hester was tired of it,
she told Rachel how the elms were always sighing because they were shut
up in town, and how they went out every night with their roots into the
green country to see their friends, and came back, oh! so early in the
morning, before any one was awake to miss them. And Rachel's heart
yearned after Hester, and she gave her her red horse and the tin duck
and magnet, and Hester made stories about them all.

At last the day came when Rachel's mother, who had long viewed the
intimacy with complacency, presented her compliments, in a note-sheet
with two immense gilt crests on it, to Hester's aunt, and requested that
her little niece might be allowed to come to tea with her little
daughter. And Lady Susan Gresley, who had never met the rich
iron-master's wife in this world, and would probably be equally
exclusive in the next, was about to refuse, when Hester, who up to that
moment had apparently taken no interest in the matter, suddenly cast
herself on the floor in a paroxysm of despair and beat her head against
the carpet. The tearful entreaties of her aunt gradually elicited the
explanation, riddled by sobs, that Hester could never take an interest
in life again, could never raise herself even to a sitting position, nor
dry her eyes on her aunt's handkerchief, unless she were allowed to go
to tea with Rachel and see her dormouse.

Lady Susan, much upset herself, and convinced that these outbursts were
prejudicial to Hest